


my home from long ago

by cap_and_cyborg



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: F/F, Hallucinations, Minor Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Non-Consensual Drug Use, POV Andy | Andromache of Scythia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 10:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29169696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cap_and_cyborg/pseuds/cap_and_cyborg
Summary: When The Old Guard tries to apprehend a group who stole hallucinogens, Andy and Quynh are exposed and see part of their family who has been long lost to them.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Lykon & Quynh | Noriko, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	my home from long ago

“I want it put down for the record what a bad idea I think it is that you guys take this job,” Copley Two said the moment that the video call started. His real name was Callum, but as he had taken over for Copley after his retirement, he bore the nickname with grace.

“Noted,” Andy said drily. “What are the details?”

Callum sighed, but began reading his notes. “According to a friend of mine over at MI6, there is a scientist that is working on an interactive, virtual reality experience that allows the user to interact with people they have lost, in order to be able to start the healing process and move on. It pairs VR with a cocktail of aerosol hallucinogens to allow the user to be truly immersed.” He looked up at the screen for a moment. “Anyone else wondering how the hell they even got cleared to do this?”

“We can focus on that later. C’mon, CT, where do we come in?” Nile asked.

“Right. Well, last Thursday, the lab was broken into and most of the hallucinogens were stolen. The scientist is worried that the people who stole it are planning to use it as a torture device, manipulating the hallucinogenic effects to induce mental torture. We need you to retrieve the hallucinogens and destroy any replications that have been created. If you can capture rather than kill those responsible, it would be appreciated.”

He paused and set down his notebook. “Given your backgrounds, I feel the need to caution you before you agree to take this job. Should you get into a situation where the hallucinogens are released and you are caught up in the simulation, you all have more than enough trauma between you to devastate your minds. Please think carefully before making your decision.”

Andy reached out and took Quynh’s hand. They exchanged a look, then nodded.

“We can do it.”

Nicky and Joe nodded.

They turned to Booker and Nile, the only two that hadn’t spoken up.

“I would be lying if I didn’t say I really don’t want to be exposed to that gas,” Nile said. She was still reeling from the death of her mother, only three years prior.

“Myself as well,” Booker said. “I feel it could trigger old wounds.”

“However,” Nile said, straightening her shoulders, “there are other people out there who have also been who hell, who need to be saved from being exposed to that. So. I’m in.”

Booker sighed, then nodded.

Andy turned to Copley Two. “Where do we need to go?”

* * *

  
  


Once Callum found where the thieves were hiding, it was easy to come up with a plan. Nicky would be at the ready with his rifle, Joe as his spotter. Nile, Booker, Andy, and Quynh would infiltrate the building and destroy any samples they came across. If possible, they would go with nonlethal options for capture, unless that was no longer an option.

“Any signs of life from your end, Nicky?” Nile asked as they made their way through the warehouse. Her voice was muffled behind the gas mask Callum had forced them all to wear. He wasn’t sure if it would do anything against the hallucinogen, given that they knew very little about it, but it “helped calm his heart, which you all put through too much already,” according to him.

“There’s activity on the west side of the building, third floor,” came the response through their comms.

“Alright, Quynh with me to the third floor. Booker, Nile, scan the bottom floors for any sign of the hallucinogen or a lab. Nicky, Joe, watch our backs,” Andy ordered.

They split up.

Andy kept scanning their surroundings as they ascended, but there was no sign that people were in the building. They kept going, Quynh a step behind her, her favorite handgun at the ready. She was proficient with a gun as she was with a bow and arrow. Andy gave her a small smile during her next scan, one that Quynh quickly returned.

They walked down the walkway towards the room Nicky had seen movement. They each took a side of the closed door. Quynh nodded, and Andy took a step back, then kicked the door in. They rushed inside.

Only to see four people clearly out of their minds on the hallucinogens. It was thick in the air and blurred Andy’s vision through her protective goggles. Again, Copley Two’s idea.

“Arianna! You’re here!” one of the people said, looking at Andy.

She raised an eyebrow. Given she hadn’t ever been called Arianna, even throughout the course of her very long life, it was safe to assume that whoever the man was seeing wasn’t actually Andy.

“I’ve missed you,” he said, coming closer.

Andy went on alert, especially as another person turned to them.

“Adam, oh my god, it’s you!” the woman sobbed. She ran up to Quynh and threw her arms around her.

She looked at Andy, who shrugged.

“We’ve got four people, all high as fuck. Shouldn’t be too difficult to-”

“I’ve missed you so much,” the man said, and he leaned forward to rest his forehead against Andy’s. He pulled back, and for a moment, Andy saw his eyes clear. Then they narrowed and, before Andy could stop him, reached up and pulled on the gas mask. It didn’t move much, but the break in the seal let the gas in.

It sat heavily on Andy’s tongue.

“Motherfu-” Andy managed before she felt the tug on her subconscious. She elbowed the guy in the nose, knocking him unconscious. She turned, ready to push Quynh out of the door. It might be too late for Andy to not feel the effects, but Quynh hadn’t been exposed yet, she hadn’t-

_ Shit. _

The woman in front of Quynh had gone in to kiss her, pulling her head in with grasping hands. Her head hit against the mask as she pulled Quynh in and the combination of gestures broke the seal on Quynh’s mask too.

Andy knocked the woman back and grabbed Quynh’s arm, trying to ignore the things she was starting to see out of the corner of her eyes.

“C’mon we’ve gotta go, Quynh, come on!”

But Quynh wasn’t looking at Andy. She was staring at something in front of her, some _ one _ who made her look full of joy and loss all at once.

Andy knew, before she even turned to look, who would be standing there. But she couldn’t resist.

“Lykon…” Quynh said, rushing forward and jumping into the arms of her old friend.

“Hello, my beautiful sister,” Lykon said, hugging her back. Quynh was sobbing into his shoulder as he looked up and gave Andromache the brilliant smile that she hadn’t seen in over a thousand years.

“Andromache. I’ve missed you.”

_ “Andy, Quynh, come in! Can you hear me?” _

“Lykon,” Andy said, her voice choked. “I am so sorry. I didn’t have your back.”

“Andromache.” The look he gave her was gentle but chiding. “How could you have known? You, the oldest of us, had no idea our immortality was finite.”

“But why  _ you?! _ ” she burst out. It was the question that had haunted her since she had tried to hold Lykon’s stomach together as he bled out. “You said,  _ I  _ am the oldest,  _ I _ should have been the one to die, not  _ you, _ Lykon. Never you!”

Lykon whispered something into Quynh’s ear and she nodded, easing her hold on him. She wiped her tears and held an arm open to her wife as Lykon did the same.

“Come, Andromache. It has been far too long since I’ve held you,” Lykon said.

“I  _ can’t _ ,” Andy cried. 

“Why?”

Andy let out a shuddering breath. “Because I don’t deserve it.”

_ “Andy! Quynh! Nile, you have to get up there, I think-” _

“Deserve what, Andromache?”

Andy couldn’t look at him as she said. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, Lykon. I don’t forgive myself.”

Quynh turned to Lykon. “Much has happened since we lost you. But we never forgot you.”

“I know. Of course I know.”

Quynh swallowed. “I would be lying if the loss of you didn’t feel like an unhealing wound.”

“I understand. But I don’t want you to mistake grief with guilt. They do not have to both exist. Not in this,” Lykon said. “It was my time. The only grief I felt in that was to be parted from you.”

“I lost it,” Andy said suddenly, not looking at Lykon. “My immortality. And suddenly, all I wanted was to live. I had my family, and we just added Nile, and then we got Quynh back. But I also felt relief. That finally, the universe was correcting the wrong. Letting me be with you. And then it came back. And now I am more lost from you than ever.”

Lykon kissed Quynh’s forehead then let her go. He walked up to Andy. “Do I look lost to you?”

Andy finally let herself fully look at him. He glowed with vitality and love and joy, all the things he exemplified in life, pouring out of him. 

“You look perfect.”

Lykon held out his arms. “Please, Andromache?”

She let out a sob, then made her feet move forward.

Andromache the Scythian had had many homes throughout the years. So many places, all blurred together. It was only after she met Quynh that she let her home be found in people. In Quynh. In Lykon. She hadn’t known how dangerous that was, until Lykon’s death.

Stepping into Lykon’s arms, Andy felt like she had come back to a long lost home for the first time in a millennium.

But there was something missing.

“Quynh,” she called. “We need you.”

Her wife squeezed into the space between Andy’s right arm and Lykon’s left and they all pressed together, holding each other so tightly that it hurt.

And something that had been piercing Andy’s heart for so long that she hardly noticed it anymore unsheathed itself.

She felt relief.

_ Crash! Crash! Crash! _

Andy took a breath and her head cleared a bit. Another and she realized she was only holding Quynh in her arms. Another and she pulled her wife closer as she started to sob.

“Andy? Quynh? Do you copy?” Nile’s voice rang through the comms.

“Copy,” Andy said, her voice hoarse. “Quynh’s a bit overwhelmed. Nicky shot out the windows?”

“He did. You alright, boss?” Joe asked.

“Give it a few minutes to clear, then come in with the restraints. I think they wanted to use the hallucinogen for its intended purpose, not maliciously, but we still need to bring them in. They hotboxed the room and are still pretty out of it. I think we were only influenced a little,” Andy said, not answering the question.

“Will do.”

Andy turned back to her wife.

“We’re going to be alright,  _ trái tim của em,” _ Andy whispered, running a hand gently up and down her back. 

Quynh nodded into her shoulder, then finally raised her head and wiped her eyes. “It was just so  _ nice _ to see him again,” she said tearfully.

Andy looked around the room and the people who were still in the midst of their hallucinations. She saw all the different emotions possible, from devastation to happiness. Then she buried her face into Quynh’s hair.

“I miss him, Quynh,” she admitted quietly.

“Of course you do, Andromache. But missing him doesn’t have to be contingent on staying guilty. He wouldn’t want that,” Quynh said.

“Yeah,” Andy said, remembering that relief she felt. “I’m starting to get that.”

She leaned back, kissing Quynh on the forehead just like Lykon had done. “Are  _ you _ alright?”

She shrugged. “I will be. It was a beautiful dream, and now I must wake.”

For now, that would have to be enough. Later, Andy would take care of Quynh, help her through the emotional upheaval of seeing their long dead brother in arms. Later, Andy would tell Nile and the others stories of Lykon, his kindness, his light, his talent for storytelling. Later, she might even forgive herself.

But for now, Andy held Quynh until the air had cleared and their family came for them.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> trái tim của em - my heart
> 
> Come talk to me about Lykon on tumblr: even-after-a-millennia


End file.
